Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882-1978) Cubist Landscape Oil on canvas, 42 x 63cm (16¼ x 24¾) Provenance: Mary Swanzy Studio Sale, Christies South Kensington, May 2007, Catalogue No.327, where purchased...

Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882-1978) Cubist Landscape Oil on canvas, 42 x 63cm (16¼ x 24¾) Provenance: Mary Swanzy Studio Sale, Christies South Kensington, May 2007, Catalogue No.327, where purchased by the present owner. Mary Swanzy approached Cubism in much the same way as she addressed every new challenge in her painting; she interpreted the rules to suit herself and her interests. It is what makes her painting unique and fresh. It also allows the work to be independent of many of the less interesting qualities that can occur when a major modernist trend is transposed across Europe. Swanzy had been working with landscape for many years before she met Gertrude Stein in Paris in 1906 and witnessed Picasso’s fine portrait in Stein’s home, among other unframed paintings. She was undoubtedly one of the first Irish painters to tackle the new way of seeing. She regarded herself primarily as a landscape painter in the 1920s therefore it is not surprising that she chose to make it the central focus of her Cubist works. Colour as always is important to Swanzy and in this painting she also maintains some more formal concerns of light and even perspective as befits her classical training. She balances the colour palette beautifully while creating a dynamic quality to the landscape in the swirling rhythms of her line. The eye is drawn to the centre of the painting which remains still. The white pinpoints, possibly a cottage, reflected in the blue sitting on a horizon line undisturbed by the refracted circles becoming ever smaller. As with many of her Cubist paintings Swanzy’s love of mathematics especially the geometry of her native Georgian city is evident. The circular motif is typical of Swanzy’s approach which belongs more to the school of Synthetic Cubism. She does not follow a rigorous theory but builds on her own knowledge to create a personal interpretation of the emerging ideas of the period. She first exhibited at the Salon des Independents in 1914 at the peak of Robert and Sonia Delauney’s influential form of Salon Cubism, known alternately as Orphism or Synchronism. Swanzy became a member of the Salon in 1920. Liz Cullinane May 2015

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